Insecure (Love Triumphs 1)

The only good thing—the man was gay. Had to be. He watched Jacinta put on peach coloured lace underwear. It was impossible not to watch her. Unless she was trying to get him to spill his life’s secrets or was pissy with him, he didn’t want to glance away from her.

How she looked when she came, petal soft and shockingly fragile, he wanted to own that look and never let it be exposed to another man’s sight.

He shouldn’t have let her fall asleep in the bath, but exhaustion sat in black smudges under her eyes and he’d wanted it, for himself, that quiet come down, that slow peace with a gorgeous woman in his arms.

He needed to watch himself; he’d gone too far too quick with her. Told her stuff that was important to him. Wanted her to listen, wanted to know her secrets too. He wasn’t sure where that’d come from, wasn’t his usual style. Not that it mattered. They were one unexpected rip-tearing night and one delayed exit away from being done with each other. And that’s how he needed it to be. He didn’t have time for this. And the idea of him and her—one drunken night and a whole lot of very satisfying sexual gymnastics? Sure. But program over.

He watched her step into the dress she’d had on earlier. He stopped her hand at the zipper. Did it up; letting his knuckles brush against her back. Her skin was so silken he thought about running his nose and mouth up her neck while she wound her damp hair back into a knot. She looked over her shoulder at him; a knowing smirk. His chance to touch her was drawing to a close. He could feel her distancing herself.

They’d left the TV on, tuned to the news station. It was showing other vision but a ticker on the bottom of the screen kept repeating the various stats: victims’ details, information hotlines and websites. They waited for a bulletin and learned the lockdown was still in effect. The area contained had narrowed substantially, but not sufficiently to exclude her building.

Jacinta moved into the kitchen. “That has to mean they know where he is.”

It also meant Mace was stuck. She hung about the open fridge door. He hovered between the sense that he should apologise for whatever it was he’d done to erect a wall between them and relief that they’d come to this. It would be easier to walk away.

He was starving again. Salad for lunch, on the remains of a hangover after the workout he’d had on her gorgeous body, didn’t cut it. He could feel the vestiges of a headache bedding in behind his eyes. He needed protein, lots of it. “I could put something together.”

She looked up. “I said I’d take care of dinner.”

Okay then. And she’d called him prickly. He went back to the TV and sat while she made a noise in the kitchen that sounded more like crockery being rearranged than cooking. When the microwave pinged he tried to identify the smell and got a nose full of heated plastic wrap. He wasn’t a great cook, but Buster taught him the basics and they didn’t own a microwave.

It’d be a long night and a stay in the guest room if the lockdown didn’t lift and he let this strangeness spread between them. He turned the sound on the TV down and went across to the big white counter.

“We can do one of two things.”

She scooped what looked like a beef and vegetable casserole onto plates and it smelled better up close. She gave him a look that said all he needed to know about how unhappy she was he was still in her space.

“We can do this strained thing we’ve got going, or we can eat, and if the horror show out there doesn’t end tonight, we can sleep.”

“You’ve got it all worked out.”

He shook his head. He had none of this worked out. He didn’t understand what’d happened between her nightmare in the bath and this freak-out in the kitchen. All he knew was he wanted to be with her again before this finished.

“Or I can leave.” It had to be less of an issue to get out by now, and if not, he’d slept in worse places than the foyer.

“Eat, Mace.”

He sat, picked up a fork and ate. She sat opposite him and did the same. He needed this, and to talk to Buster again. He needed to work out how to get past Jacinta’s pissy mood and accept her help with Jay.

Fucking it out of her was an option. She liked him when he had her naked, when his lips found the secret little places on her body that turned her on. He liked it too. A whole lot more than he’d expected to. But that wouldn’t work if she thought he was a mistake.

He’d been a mistake before. More than once. Usually that came later though, when he showed himself as useless boyfriend material. They weren’t in that space; she wasn’t the kind of women who did boyfriends, and she was still giving him that attitude. That sucked. He’d thought she was the woman least likely to get needy or go sour on him. Because he was the last thing she wanted for anything more than a good fuck.

They ate in silence, until she said, “I’ve lost a day of work. I’m got a nightmare week ahead of me. I’m going to use the office. You’re welcome to stay, watch TV.”

He got up and brought his plate around to the sink. She let him take hers. “Thank you.” She left him and went down the hallway. And that was that. A surgically clean cut, why had he spent a second wondering what to do?

He stacked the dishwasher. Wiped down the counter. He found a phone extension and rang Buster, keeping his eye on the TV, on the lockdown reports. He could ring Dillon. He thought about Jacinta, how different she was out of her heels and tailoring, how much more real. He knew he’d think about how she felt, how she touched him with hands so sure they knew how to please, with movement so inspired to excite him, for a long, long time. Having her take him in the bath was his new favourite fantasy. He could play it in his head on repeat; Cinta sliding over him, her hands slipping on his chest, his on her hips, their mouths greedy for anything wet made of skin, and it would never get old.

He shook himself. He had to quit it, it was making him hard. Calling Dillon would fix that. But the idea held less appeal than sleeping in the foyer. He wandered around the lounge room, the dining room. It was an extraordinary place, but it wasn’t a home. It was a magazine spread without real warmth or life. She didn’t have a single framed photo or an item that could be considered personal. It might’ve been a hotel suite. He learned nothing about her from being there.

If she could see his place, Buster’s house, where he’d grown up. Chaotic: a jumble of her books and crafts, her old furniture, books and mementos, and his gear. Surfboards, bike parts, old vinyl records, and bits of hard drives, cables, chargers and componentry stuffed in every cupboard, abandoned on every available surface. It was dusty and smelled like old shoes and rising damp in the winter. There always seemed to be milk gone off in the fridge and ants in the sink. But it was comfortable, safe. It was a home.

Off the dining room was a small deck but the glass door was locked. He played with the catch but couldn’t get it open, an electronic security override in place. Like everything here, state-of-the-art. There was a door off to the side and he pressed on the handle, expecting it to be locked or another furniture showroom. What he got when he found a light was a mind fuck.

The vague smell of solvents buzzed his nose. There were canvases stacked against three walls, all sizes, some blank, some half finished. There were two easels, both covered with sheets. A long counter cluttered with jars, brushes, knives, spatulas. He moved into the room and pulled a sheet away from the tallest easel. The canvas on it was movie poster-sized; a woman, painted in fractured lines, running, glancing over her shoulder at something that frightened her.

“What are you doing in here?”